Rolls-Royce of Salts - Salinas de Añana - Álava - Basque Country

 The creative adult is the child who has survived.

Ursula Le Guin

Channeling salt water at the Añana Salt Pans
Salty water coming from underground springs, not from ocean or sea 

From our current perspective, it is almost incomprehensible that salt, such an abundant and inexpensive product, could have the importance that has historically been attributed to it.

It must be taken into account that salt was and is indispensable in many industrial processes and in human and animal nutrition, and even more so when industrial refrigeration had not yet been developed, since it was one of the most effective methods for preserving food in good condition.

Salt has been the cause of numerous forced wars and peace, of deaths and rises, of wealth and poverty, of the creation and destruction of towns and cities, and, of course, of greed, but also of the joys of human beings.

Añana Salt Pans

Valle Salado de Añana is a cultural and natural briny scenery that is over 7,500 years old.  The salt pans as they are seen today were mostly developed in the first century BCE.  The unusual salt-related architecture having been developed over more than seven millennia does not display the stiff style of architects but is the product of salt workers using what nature provided in the area: stone, wood, and clay (and today cement tiles instead of clay).

The Salado Valley, in the town of Añana, in northern Spain, is rich in salt but the terrain is unwieldy. Particularly, there is a shortage of flat, open ground, where brine could be allowed to evaporate and salt could settle. This has led to the development of some impressive structures consisting of staggered evaporation terraces, zigzagged with a network of wooden channels that transport the salt water by gravity from the springs to the salt complex. This exceptional saline landscape with its unique salt-related architecture, built to adapt to a complex topography, is one of the most spectacular and best preserved cultural landscapes in Europe.

Añana has over 7,000 years of history
Only 2,000 of the original 5,000 salt pans are in use today

Blue lines are the water channels feeding each salt pan
Water coming from underground is from a 200 million year old sea
Only the four lower ones on the left are in used today

Geological Phenomenon

How do we get this salt? The answer is a geological phenomenon known as a Diapir. Roughly speaking, the area that makes up the valley was covered by a big ocean more than 200 million years ago that eventually dried up, leaving a layer of salt several miles thick. With time, this layer was covered by a new stratum that hid it from sight.

But how do you extract it? The answer is simple: either by mining which is hard work and expensive or taking advantage of the saltwater springs that are created after freshwater has filtered through the layers of solid salt diluting it, bringing it to the surface, and enabling a 200 million-year-old mineral to reach your kitchen table in a very ecological way, minus any drilling or mining.

Wells

The storage wells are the heart of the salt farms.  Filling them was the main cause of disputes between the salt workers (salineros).  This is due to the limited amount of salt water that flows from the springs, the large number of existing salt pans and the concentration of production work in some specific months.  A high number of wells exist at the salt works (currently 848) and the need for a regulation to distribute the use of the brine, known as the ‘Master Book’ (Libro Maestro), a rulebook addressing the complex distribution of the brine, was necessary and ultimately helped keep the peace between numerous owners.

Edorta Loma, head of production at the Añana Salt Valley Foundation, is one of those who know most about the salt flats, because he is part of one of the family sagas who have extracted salt here on the basis of usage rights documented in writing more than 1,200 years ago.  As a kid he used to play with miniature wooden toys representing the same tools he uses today on the salt pans.

As the salt dries up, it is shoveled in piles
The salineros normally fill the salt pans with about 2-3cm (nearly 1") of brine at a time
It takes 2-3 days to dry enough to collect the salt, only from May-September

The salt is carried in baskets, plastic tubs, or bags
The base of each salt pan is now made of cement, creating a whiter salt
Creating much less work for the salineros compared to when the base was made of clay

Bucket suspended on pendulum to get salty spring water from the storage well

One of 848 wells feeding the salt pans

Farm

A group of salt pans belonging to the same owner is called a farm.  There are currently over 2,000 salt pans producing salt (from the original 5,648).  The horizontal surface of each pan is called ‘balsa’ (raft) or threshing pit.

The salt works of Añana belong to the large group of neighbors, in fact, almost the entire population of the village owns shares in the salt plant as they are fortunate enough to have several springs that provide around 69,000 gallons (260,000 liters) of brine daily with a concentration near to saturation point. 

Of the many springs in Valle Salado de Añana, only four can be used thanks to their constant flow of about 2 liters/second and level of salinity higher than any sea, excluding the Dead Sea (210-250 gr/l).

The salt water is then transported by means of gravity through a network of channels called ‘royos’.  There is nearly 2.5 miles (4km) of royos in Valle Salado de Añana although many of them were originally simply ditches dug in the ground, over time they were replaced by wooden structures, usually hollowed pine trunks, some over 1,000 years old (well preserved by their salty environment). 

History

Salado Valley’s salt history goes back thousands of years, although back in those times, salt was extracted by a different process. Salt water was collected in large ceramic pots and placed over a fire until all the water had boiled away. The change in the evaporation system from forced to natural took place in the first century BCE, when this area in the north of Spain was taken over by the Roman Empire.

The importance of salt in days of old transformed Salinas de Añana into the first royal burgh in the present territory of the Basque Country. King Alfonso I of Aragón bestowed this honor on the town in 1114.

The Añana Salt Valley has been a Spanish National Monument since 1984. It was necessary to raise awareness of the value of these salt facilities as a historical archive to rescue them from disuse in the 20^th century following the arrival of refrigerators, and the train to coastal salt flats and salt mines. 

So much wood used to support each salt pan
Over 13 hectares of salt pans

There are nearly 2.5 miles (4km) of wooden channels (aka royos)
To carry water to each salt pan by gravity
Crystalized salt on the wood add to its robustness

Unique salt stalactites (called chunks) due to leakage of the brine along the channels (royos)
Salt penetrating the pores of the wood making it resistant to bugs or decay
Some of the wood used here is over 1,000 years old

Salt everywhere, somewhat artistic 

The Salt

The space beneath the salt pans are used to store salt produced from May through September.  It is then transported to the warehouses where it is checked for insects, packaged, and sold.  The salineros spend the rest of the year on restoration and maintenance work. 

Of the abundant produce, cured meats and fruits of the Cantabrian Sea widely available in Basque Country, there is but one local ingredient that has won the endorsement of the region's Michelin-decorated chefs: the salt.

Añana fleur de sel, the delicate variety hand-harvested from the valley's surface during the evaporation process, is easily distinguishable from pink Himalayan pebbles and pyramids of Maldon. Its crunchy flakes are Day-Glo white, flat like shale and varied in size, like shards of milky glass broken from a single pane.

Martín Berasategui, chef of his eponymous three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Lasarte, dubs Añana the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of salts, a sentiment many Basque chefs would agree with.

‘I think it fits well with our gastronomic culture, our seasonal products and our way of cooking,’ Amaiur Martínez Ortuzar, chef at San Sebastián's Ganbara.

The salt chunk is a unique product worldwide, and almost a collectors’ item, because very little of it is produced. It emerges from small salt water leaks along upper structures and channels which create salt stalactites drip by drip. Taste analysis performed by specialists demonstrate that it is of much better quality.

The chunks, which used to be given away to the poor, are now worth 600 euros a kilo, according to Edorta Loma, by way of a demonstration of the prestige that the district has regained.

So white the salt pans are
The special form that it adopts when crystalizing is called fleur de sel
Heat and wind are the agents determining the evaporation process

Salt is collected under some of the salt pans, the hole is called boquera
All of it will be processed by hand

Aerial view from fundacionvallesalado's website
Each pan from 12 to 20 square meters, some of them 26 feet (8m) high

This whole process was almost lost

Añana salt isn't just an essential element of Basque cuisine; it's also an integral part of its culture. The salt valley has been an important economic engine in the region since the Middle Ages, when it was governed by a community of salt workers and home to more than 5,000 platforms used to collect the white gold.

After hundreds of healthy production years, increasingly competitive markets in the mid-1900’s led the Añana salt workers' association (Gatzagak), to reduce costs by introducing a cheaper, unsustainable building material into the saltworks: cement. With a new focus on profitability, the salt was overharvested, and the sustainable practices that defined the valley for generations began to die out. Workers abandoned their posts, the area deteriorated and El Valle Salado was nearly lost.

It wasn't until a revitalization effort in 2000 that a master plan was developed to drive the recovery and rehabilitation of the valley. Later in 2009, the Valle Salado de Añana Foundation emerged to preserve the economic and cultural benefits of the salt valley; that same year, the Gatzagak donated its pans used to evaporate and harvest the salt to the foundation, giving the foundation full ownership of the valley. And in 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations designated the area among the first Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems of Europe. Valle Salado de Añana has, after thousands of years, officially earned its place among the world's most significant natural and cultural systems, alongside Andean agriculture in Peru, Kashmiri saffron cultivation and the rice terraces of mountainous China. 

This non-profit institution is now in charge of enhancing this rustic salt landscape and promoting special development in the area.  The Añana salt is produced ensuring the sustainable development of the Salt Valley and respecting its heritage and environmental values.

When I was there, I watched as workers in white lab coats and hairnets looked at salt with magnifying glasses to take away any impurities before weighing and packaging.  All these processes are still completely done by hand.  I was told they could produce more salt but they choose to produce less salt but of the best quality.  Quality over quantity and sustainability over abuse.

I was visiting off-season so I didn’t get to actually see the process of evaporation through wind and sun.  I think it would have been quite fascinating.  It was still nice to see the whole architectural aspect of this salt valley and recognizing that salt is the only ‘rock’ human beings consume.

Aerial view from fundacionvallesalado's website

Aerial view from fundacionvallesalado's website
Each pan following the countour of the land